Helping children in Year 5 discover a love of reading is most successfully achieved when a wide range of appealing and age-appropriate books are available.  Research on reading for pleasure shows that children who choose to read for enjoyment are more likely to achieve higher academic outcomes, to have improved mental health and to gain economic success later in life. What’s more, when children choose to open a book to read, they are able to discover new worlds beyond their own experiences, to learn about different people and to develop critical thinking and crucial empathy skills, as well as advancing their language and vocabulary.

Getting the right book into the right child’s hands at the right time is absolutely key to sparking a love of reading. At the ages of 9 and 10, most children are able to read longer chapter books and handle stories with an increasing complexity of themes. Popular with this age group are thought-provoking books about relevant social issues, as well as laugh-out-loud funny books, graphic novels and non-fiction that covers topics of interest. As well as having a wide range of styles and formats to choose from for independent reading, an essential ingredient in developing a lifelove of books at this age is when adults protect shared reading experiences and continue to read aloud at storytime well beyond the age that children can read for themselves. 

With this in mind, our team has carefully selected a balance of different types of books to engage Year 5 children in reading for pleasure - either for reading independently or together with an adult. They have a core set of Traditional Tales, Poems and literature which is classed as 'Literacy Heritage' alongside the Books for Topics 50 Recommended Reads. We at Compass Primary review this annually to ensure that children are familiar with new authors and texts. We also select the children's favourites from the year and send up to their next classroom, so they can continue to enjoy them again and again. 

Books for Topics, 2021 - https://www.booksfortopics.com/year-5

Traditional Tales:

Poetry:

Literacy Heritage:

50 Recommended Reads: